Since the start of the recession, the output per worker in the UK has fallen by 3 per cent. This is extraordinary. In a recent speech, Ben Broadbent, a member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee, notes that if the pre-crisis relationship between output and employment still held, the number of jobs would have fallen by 8 per cent since mid-2007. Yet employment has risen since then. It has also apparently risen since early 2010, despite stagnant output and falling public sector employment.

Is productivity falling, instead of rising, as one would expect?

One explanation could be a big shift to part-time work. In a recent article, Joe Grice, chief economist of the Office of National Statistics, shows that the number of hours worked has fallen more than the number in employment since early 2008 – but only by 2 per cent. Thus, even output per hour has fallen.